Bio

Richard Cramer is a lecturer in the Department of Private Law. He holds a BA(Hons), LLB, LLM, and PhD from the University of Cape Town. Richard's research has focused primarily on property law, particularly the mandament van spolie, unlawful evictions, the abandonment of ownership, and negative-value property. His research has also touched on mineral law, particularly the conflicting rights and interests between landowners and right holders in terms of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act.

He graduated with his LLM cum laude for a dissertation titled The Mandament van Spolie and Unlawful Evictions. He received his PhD in 2020 for a thesis titled The Abandonment of Landownership: A Proposed Model for Regulated Exit. During his doctoral studies, he received funding from the Swiss-South African Joint Research Partnership to spend four months at Lehrstuhl Arnet at the University of Zurich. Prior to his appointment as a lecturer in the Department, Richard completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the SARChI Research Chair: Mineral Law in Africa. 

Research interests/expertise

Property Law; Mineral Law.

Teaching

Foundations of South African Law

The Law of Delict

Publications

Cramer RH & Mostert H “‘Home’ and Unlawful Occupation: The Horns of Local Government’s Dilemma” (2015) 26 Stellenbosch Law Review 583.

Cramer RH & Vols M “Hoarding Disorder and the Legal System: A Comparative Analysis of South African and Dutch law” (2016) 49 Journal of Law and Psychiatry 114.

Cramer RH “The Abandonment of Landownership in South Africa and Swiss Law” (2017) 134 South African Law Journal 870.

Cramer RH "Waste as Property: The Law's Role in Maximising Value" (2022) 118 South African Journal of Science 1.

Cramer RH "Abandoning the Spouse, Abandoning the House? Abandonment of Co-Ownership Shares in Immovable Property [Discussion of M v M (10751/2000) [2020] ZAGPPHC 155 (20 March 2020)]" (2022) 33 Stellenbosch Law Review 548.

Cramer RH "Abandonment of Rights to Minerals Granted in Terms of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act" (2022) 43 Obiter.

R Cramer & B Kengni (eds) Covid-19 and Mining: Reflections on a Pandemic (2023) MLiA Occasional Papers Series Issue 5: 2023.

R Cramer & H Mostert “Exiting Negatively Valued Ownership in a Climate-Distressed World: The Options in South Africa” in M Habsas et al (eds) Rethinking Expropriation Law IV (2024).

Forthcoming

E van der Schyff & R Cramer “Chapter 2: Rights in Respect of Minerals” South Africa MLiA Book Series (forthcoming).

R Cramer & H Mostert “Chapter 5: Rights to Surface and Subsurface” South Africa MLiA Book Series (forthcoming).